SWP CH 01

Chapter 1 

Crack—!

The chilling sound of bones breaking echoed through the room.
Agatha, who had been sitting frozen in a pool of blood, flinched violently.

It was a night like many others — another large-scale assassination attempt. Her seventh husband, a skilled knight, had fought them off as if it were routine.

The only difference this time was that one of the intruders had dared to lay a hand on her.

Dragged from her bed and thrown onto the cold marble floor, she had barely looked up before the gleam of a sword flashed above her head—

Slash!

Her husband had returned just in time. His blade tore through the intruder’s body, and for the first time in her life, Agatha was splattered with hot, pulsing blood.

From that night on, her husband, Enoch Aratus, seemed a little… off.
With one large hand, he wiped the blood from her face—then turned and slaughtered the rest of the assassins.

When no one but him was left standing, he came back to her and crushed the neck of the man who had dragged her out of bed.

Agatha could only stare up at him blankly.

“I told you,” he said, his voice low, “I am not like your ex-husbands.”

“……!”

His handsome face was marred by a long scar. His clear gray eyes gleamed coldly as they pierced into hers.

“This is a good opportunity to clean up your treacherous relatives.”

He tossed his sword aside with a clang and held out his hand to her.

“Come here, Agatha.”

Don’t drive me insane like this…

* * *

In the Roxbard Empire—and even beyond its borders—there was no one who didn’t know the name Agatha Nobilis, heir to an immense fortune.
Her marriage history, however, was the stuff of legend.

At five years old, she lost her parents and two older brothers. Following the emperor’s orders—her guardian at the time—she was married off to Duke Gregory Progus.

Agatha still remembered the first words he spoke to her at the wedding.

“Five years old?”
“……”
“Wow, that’s over ten years before you’re even an adult. Well, you’re a little bundle of gold, so who cares? Hahaha!”

It had been a political marriage with a thirty-year age gap.

The emperor expanded his borders through the union, and Agatha gained protection from greedy relatives within the Nobilis family who were eager to take her inheritance.

The marriage went smoothly—until the duke was stabbed in a gambling den and left impotent.

Without an heir, the inheritance risked passing to another branch of the family, something the emperor refused to allow.

And so came the second marriage—to Prince Ferdinand Mainumconti, the second prince of the neighboring empire, as part of the emperor’s political ambitions.

The prince was young, handsome, and perfectly healthy… but hopelessly debauched.

“Hide, my dear! Tonight, I’ll spend the night with all the women I haven’t caught yet!”
“……”
“Oh, of course, Agatha, you’re too young—just sit there and watch, all right?”

He already had ten mistresses when they married. By the time illegitimate children started showing up, Agatha, unable to stand it anymore, demanded a divorce from the emperor—at the age of thirteen.

The third marriage happened because the emperor wanted a new port and was preparing for war.

Her third husband, Sir George Fortis, was known as the greatest knight in the Roxbard Empire—strong, loyal, but terribly insecure and, frankly, hideous.

He couldn’t stand anyone looking at him.

“Don’t look at me! You stare because I’m ugly, don’t you?”
“……”

Agatha, crying inwardly, endured the arranged marriage until George suffered a crushing defeat in battle.
She seized the moment and demanded another divorce.

At sixteen, having come of age, she was finally granted full control of her inheritance.

“Very well,” the emperor conceded, “I acknowledge your independence in matters of marriage. But I remain your guardian and emperor. If the Nobilis family’s affairs threaten the empire, I will intervene.”
“That’s fair enough. Thank you, Your Majesty.”

For the first time in eleven years, Agatha could choose her own husband.
Freedom tasted sweet—until assassins sent by her own relatives tried to kill her.

That was when she chose Henry Incidio, her fourth husband, a man who claimed to love her desperately.

“I love you so much I could die without you.”

But after the wedding, Agatha overheard the truth.

“Love her? Don’t be stupid. Once she gives me a son, I’ll kill her and rule as the next Nobilis head myself.”

That marriage ended quickly. Agatha, now shrewder, hired another man to remove Henry for her—her fifth husband, Leonard Shinzer.

This marriage, too, was arranged, but not unpleasant. Until—

“The test results… your husband is congenitally impotent.”
“What?!”

No heir meant the inheritance might pass abroad, and the furious emperor dissolved the marriage himself.

When preparing for her sixth marriage, Agatha thought carefully.

“Maybe if I marry into a family that has everything, they won’t need to kill me.”

And so she accepted the proposal of Duke Theodore Neuta, a young and respectable nobleman.

He treated her gently, respected her, and kept her safe with his knights.

But there was one fatal problem.

* * *

Seven months before the night of the assassination.
In the grand and ancient Neuta family mansion.

Agatha stormed down the marble halls, her heels echoing with rage.

“The duchess has arrived,” said the guards before the duke’s study.

“Let me in,” she ordered.

“Your Grace, the duchess requests an audience.”

“Show her in,” came the calm reply from inside.

Agatha’s violet eyes burned with fury as she entered.

Her husband, Duke Theodore Neuta, rose politely.
“My dear? What brings you here?”

“I need to speak with you,” she said, sitting first and gesturing for him to take the opposite seat.

“What is—”

“I can’t stand it anymore.”

Her voice cut him off.

Theodore blinked, startled, as Agatha stared straight into his handsome face.

He had everything—title, wealth, reputation, good looks, and power—but also one fatal flaw.

“Send your grandmother, mother, and sister away,” she said. “I want them out of this house. I want to live with you alone.”

“My dear, that’s…”

“Answer carefully,” she warned. “Depending on what you say, this may be my last request.”

Theodore hesitated. He couldn’t possibly expel his family.

He thought it was merely another one of those trivial quarrels between women.

“What have they said to you this time?”

“So that’s your answer?”

“Agatha, haven’t you always managed well? This is sudden—”

She raised her hand to silence him.

“Yes, I’ve ‘managed well.’ I’ve endured their insults, turned the other cheek, and stayed polite—for your sake. But I’m done.”

It had been another mistake—accepting a man with everything but a spine.

His family had never welcomed her.

“Such a vulgar dress. I suppose five marriages will do that to a woman.”

His grandmother and mother treated her as a stain on their noble name.

“Is it really so hard to give your sister-in-law a piece of your estate?”

And his sister was furious that Agatha didn’t shower her with lavish gifts.

If they hated her so much, why hadn’t they refused the marriage in the first place?

“I won’t send them away,” Theodore said quietly.

Agatha smiled brightly. “Then…”

“Theodore,” she said sweetly.

“Yes?”

“Let’s get divorced.”

The color drained from his face as her dazzling smile cut through the air.

Thus, the empire’s most famous heiress—Agatha Nobilis—finalized her sixth divorce.

And so began the story of the woman destined for seven weddings.